Medical & Mental Health in Mississippi (MDOC)

Who Provides Care

MDOC’s medical, dental, and mental-health care is delivered by a contracted provider, VitalCore Health Strategies, which the department names in its own family guidance. Care is provided only by MDOC’s medical staff — an outside or family physician cannot treat the person, and medications cannot be mailed in. State oversight of the contract has been active: the Legislature funded outside monitoring of the provider in 2025, after reports of care being denied.

Sick Call and the Co-Pay

A person requests care with a Medical Services Request Form, which medical staff triage within 24 hours; clinics run on weekdays, with emergencies seen at any hour, and people in segregation are seen daily. A resident-initiated request carries a $6 co-payment, deducted from the person’s account. The published exemptions are broad:

• All mental-health requests
• Chronic-care visits and prenatal care
• Staff referrals and follow-up visits from an initial request
• Lab work, X-rays, immunizations, and TB testing
• Intake and transfer physicals, and work-related injuries

The published rule is that no one is refused medical, dental, or mental-health care because of their financial status — an account carries the charge as a negative balance. A missed appointment, though, can mean both the co-pay and a rule-violation report.

Chronic and Specialty Care

MDOC runs chronic-care clinics and reaches specialty care — cardiology, oncology, neurology, and others — through on-site clinics and telemedicine, referring out when needed. Dental exams are scheduled on a two-year cycle. For people leaving custody, MDOC helps enroll those who are eligible in Medicaid before release to keep care continuous.

On medication-assisted treatment for opioid use disorder: MDOC runs a medication-assisted treatment program — the EPIC program, created with the Mississippi Department of Mental Health, which uses Vivitrol (extended-release naltrexone). The department does not publish whether other medications, such as buprenorphine or methadone, are offered. A specific question about continuing a medication goes to the facility’s medical department.

Pregnancy

Mississippi’s Dignity for Incarcerated Women Act sets protections that run from the time a pregnancy is known through 30 days after delivery. During that window, MDOC may not use leg restraints, may not handcuff a woman behind her body, and may not shackle her to other people — unless staff reasonably believe she will harm herself or someone else or is a substantial flight risk, and any handcuffs must then be in front. A pregnant woman, or one who has given birth within 30 days, may not be placed in restrictive housing under the same standard, must receive proper nutrition, and may not be assigned an upper bunk. Prenatal care is exempt from the co-pay. Mississippi’s women are held at the facility on the Central Mississippi campus in Pearl and at the Delta Correctional Facility.

Mental Health

Mental-health care runs through the same contracted provider, starting with a screening at intake that assigns a level of need and shapes housing. On-site clinicians and psychiatrists provide care, and a person can be referred by a request form or by staff. Every mental-health request is exempt from the co-pay. For navigating the mental-health system from outside, NAMI Mississippi operates statewide.

Federal Findings on Care

Two federal investigations bear on care in Mississippi’s prisons, and they found different things:

• The April 2022 Justice Department findings on Parchman concluded the prison failed to meet serious mental-health needs and to prevent suicides — citing flawed intake screening, too few mental-health staff, and twelve suicides over three years, all in restrictive housing.
• The February 2024 findings on Central Mississippi, South Mississippi, and Wilkinson County centered on violence, sexual assault, and prolonged restrictive housing rather than a standalone finding on medical care.

Both reports are linked in the sources, and both tie conditions to severe understaffing.

Raising a Concern from Outside

The sequence for a family worried about someone’s care:

1. A release of information comes first. MDOC and its medical provider cannot share a person’s medical information with anyone not on the person’s signed release form, and only family members on the contact list get any information at all. The person completes the form, ideally at intake.
2. The person’s own grievance path is the Administrative Remedy Program: a written request within 30 days of the issue, containing the phrase “this is a request for administrative remedy,” filed through the legal-assistance office. It runs as a two-step process with a 90-day limit, and it must be completed before any lawsuit.
3. The Office of Constituent Services at the central office, (601) 359-5600, is the published channel for family questions about an inmate, a facility, or operations; the Records Department, (601) 933-2889, handles sentence and eligibility records.
4. Sexual-abuse reports go to any staff member or to the outside confidential hotline run by the Mississippi Coalition Against Sexual Assault, 1-888-987-9011; federal PREA standards require facilities to accept third-party reports.

Verify Before Acting

For the general, nationwide overview of this topic, see the national guide: Know Your Rights.